The Forge Archives

After almost 2 1/2 months of not playing, I finally got everybody in the same place at the same time and we played Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil.  I know it's mainstream and everything, but it was such a disaster I have to rant a little and make a decision here.  

Several things happened:

First of all, one of my players invited someone to play who wasn't in the game.  In and of itself, that's not so bad, I can put the character in the game.  The thing is, that's a huge campaign game, and I have all the players I want.  I don't need yet another player who may or may not show up to play.  Plus, you just don't go inviting people to other people's games/houses/etc....

So then everybody comes over, new player makes his character and all seems right with the world.  Now, usually we play at the dining room table.  There are seats for everyone and we all have a place to put our stuff and roll dice.  We usually turn on the radio in the living room as background music, but never at a distracting level.  

Last night, however, the players got together and decided that they wanted to play in the living room.  Okay, that is fine...if the players want to play in the living room I will let them.  The room in the house where we play really isn't all that important, I suppose.  The new players suggests that we put in his new CD to listen to as background music.  I said fine, just turn it down low so it isn't distracting.  

Then we started playing:

One PC seemed to ....ahem....know a lot more about the game than last time.  

Another PC was just making really bad rolls and every bad thing that could have happened, happened to him.  He lost a level, he was nauseated by a troglodyte...everything.  He spent his time cussing like the spawn of a truck driver and finally just rode his lizard off into the sunset.  

Then there was the new player.  He spent his time being really annoying and distracting:  "Hey, everybody listen to this song coming on!",  "Hey, have you guys seen the XXX movie!  I've seen it 3 times!  This song is from the soundtrack.",  "I got the new Nickleback CD!".  Then he got a call on his cell phone and was on the phone bitching at somebody about their computer for 15 or 20 minutes.  All he wanted to do was visit, and a couple of the other players were really, really distracted by him.  

So needless to say, not much got accomplished in the game, and what was accomplished was done with a myriad of distractions.  After much frustration, one of the players decided to just create a place for the game to end for the night.  That was fine with me.  I'm not sure if this person did it to end the horror of the game or to be able to hang with his friend.  

So, I have made a few new rules:

We play at the dining room table.  No ifs, ands, or buts.  Way fewer distractions.  

We keep the radio on, at a low level, but the first time someone says ,"Hey, I love this song!", the radio goes off.  

Gaming time is gaming time...visiting time is visiting time.  If you become a distraction to the other players because you won't shut up about every other thing besides the game, your character will die a gruesome death and you will be out of the game.  

I have had a hard time with a couple of the players anyway.  They have a tendency to not show up for games and such, unless it's D&D.  I've ranted about one of them before..he's the one who doesn't like to play new games.  That's fine, because I've made yet another decision.  

The group I played with last night, henceforth, will be my D&D group.  They will not be invited to play anything else.  I have a few people who are interested in playing new games, so they will be my new indie group.  These two groups will not mix,  except for hubby.  

I'm really tired of using my big beautiful brain preparing for these games and having it end up that either the players don't show up, or they are so distracted that they can't do anything.   When it's a good game, it's a really good game, but when it's bad, I just want to hang it up and read to them straight out of the book.  

Okay, I am done ranting.  Comments?  Suggestions?

melodie

Make the character die a gruesome horrible but also hillariously entertaing death.....


Seriously, though.  If someone is doing this kinda behavior, I usually call them aside during a break and talk to them.  I explain to them that we (being the GM and the other players) are here to play a game, and if they want to play that's cool.  I also explain to them that if they want to play they must observe certain rules, such as keeping the distractions to a minimum.  I tell them that if they have something that they would rather be doing, that they should go and do that.  I tell them that the assembled players have come to play, and that if they do not want to play that they should at least sit quietly and not disturb anyone.

I also call aside the person who originally invited them and tell that person that if they want to bring a guest to the table that I have no objections, but that I want to know in advance.  I tell the person that the friend is being highly disruptive, and i9f the disruptions continue they will be aske (nicely) to leave.  I tell the person that it is not fair to the other players that the game is stagnating because one person is ruining the flow.

If all this doesn't work I ask the player who invited the friend not to invite that person again.  And I tell the other players not to invite anyone else untill they have spoken with me and the issue of whether someone will be invited has been resolved (I usually put it to a vote myself.)

When I run a game, I have very clear rules regarding what's cool and what's not when you come to the table.

The first thing I make clear right off the bat is that my games are strictly invite-only. This is done simply to make it easier for me to keep track of everyone, rather than to exclude specific people. Three or four players are easier to deal with than six or seven.

I try to make the scheduling somehwat consistent. It's easier to remember "every friday at 9", rather than here a day, there a day (everywhere a day day).

I require a table of some sort. I've had quite enough of trying to run a game while people lounge on the sofa. If it works for other people, fine, I can even play that way, but I can't run that way. I know it's a double-standard; sue me.

I would prefer to run at my own place, but that hasn't been possible to a long time, and won't be until I'm able to move to a larger apartment.

A certain amount of joking around OOC is allowed. It is, after all, a social event. I do reserve the right to draw the line, however, if I need to get things back on track. Monty Python quotes will get things thrown at you. An hour or so of general socializing and kibitzing before the game starts (as someone else suggested here) seems to work fairly well to keep this sort of thing down.

I do my damndest to enforce the whole one-person-speaks-at-a-time thing. I've thought about keeping an airhorn by the table, but I think that's being unnecessarily obnoxious.

I try and get everyone to come up with a vague concept of what they want to play before the first session, which usually consists of nothing but character creation. It helps move things along if you know what you're interested in, but I also want you to be flexible enough to modify things if it will enhance the group dynamic in some way (either through helping characters have a reason to get along, or to specifically set up inter-character conflicts that can be played out). Nothing's worse than a bunch of characters who have no reason to interact because they have nothing in common, or nothing at odds.

I make it a point to remind everyone, especially the sim-character people (Mr. Laws calls them the method actors), that while a particular course of action may very well be within the guidelines of your character's behavior patterns, you are not the only player here, and we as players are working together (even if our characters are in conflict) to create something. Don't be a dick and then blame it on your character.

I discuss and clarify any rules changes as far in advance as possible. I try to discuss stylistic an meta-game issues in advance as well. How character death will be handled, how many sessions a campaign should go on, how long a session should be, the overall tone of the game, what I'm looking to accomplish, what they're looking to accomplish, all that good stuff.

I also point out that "mature" does not equal "shocking".

On the subject of music: I try to use music to enhance whatever mood I'm trying to convey in a particular scene (film scores are my friends). Usually what I'll do is grab like 10 or 12 CDs I plan on using at some point, and invite anyone else who wishes to do so to bring what they think might be appropriate to the tone of the game. I'll designate someone (usually whoever sits nearest me) as DJ, and I'll simply hand them CDs and usually tell them what track when the situation calls for it.

I let people sort out snacks & food amongst themselves, as most of my friends don't usually have a problem with that. It's mostly bring-your-own, but occasionally someone will be magnanimous and bring a box of donuts or something. Similarly, regular breaks are usually not a problem.

-- Ben

Hey melodie,

Geez, I struggled with these same issues for years...for years and years. And I gotta say, now that I've put the problems behind me, I have to say that I think some of them are just unavoidably connected to D&D. At the heart of the matter is the fact that player characters are only significant when they're under the spotlight of GM attention. That's why you get thief players running amok burgling houses all night while the other characters sleep. It's why you get so much goofing around from players whose characters aren't present in a given scene, and why players don't feel obligated to pay attention to game events removed from their own character. D&D play, in my experience, is not an event of group engagement in story, but a competition for significance in the social fabric of the group. Part of winning the game is to be bored by the significance of other characters, and to be a distraction to the significance of other characters.

One way to solve these problems is to have semi-collaborative, face-to-face group character creation, and to use mechanics like Kickers and relationship maps. These things work to provoke player engagement in the characters of other players. If I incorporate one of your suggestions into my character concept, and it's significant to game events, then you're interested in seeing how it plays out. If your interactions with NPC's have an impact on the thematic significance of my character, because we're all tied together in a tempestuous relationship map, then I'm interested in your scenes.

The problem is that these solutions are basically unworkable for D&D:

1) It's horribly impractical to do roundtable character creation. It takes hours to create an effective character, with well chosen feats and such. And if the roundtable is just character presentation, it isn't effective at generating player interest in the characters of other players, because there's no collaborative input.
2) The reward mechanics define that character significance comes from tactical significance, and because those mechanics are so deeply embedded in every aspect of the game they'll trump intangible relationship-based thematic significance you might try to introduce every time.
3) It's too easy for a character to be rendered insigificant by a fluke of the dice. In a game like Sorcerer, significance is presumed for a character and cannot be lost. The game is about protagonists, who make decisions and who answer the thematic question of the game through their actions, not about characters who are insignificant until somehow they prove otherwise.

Okay, this is a long post. But I write it because I think there's a great thing for you to be hopeful about. Your players wanted to play in the living room. There is a willingness to be engaged by each other in a social context betrayed by that request, I think. Every game I've played the past two years (outside of GenCon), across multiple groups, has been in the living room. It is, in my experience, an environment of collaborative engagement. Read my http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2617">posts to Christopher Kubasik about group character creation, find yourself a game that doesn't trump relationship and thematic significance with its own reward mechanics (like maybe Everway), and I think you'll be rolling.

Good luck,

Paul

Quote from: Paul CzegeHey melodie,
D&D play, in my experience, is not an event of group engagement in story, but a competition for significance in the social fabric of the group.

In a nutshell.  "Competition for significance", nicely worded, may I quote you? Well, I suppose I just did...  

My personal experience with D&D has been that it nicely simulates moving lead miniatures around, but is not conducive to experiences I'm looking for---Actually, in another part of your post you talk about the way the mechanics undermine character development because what it all boils down to is strategic importance, which is what really maps to my experience.


Melodie,

The change you made that stood out to me as making the greatest change is your new division between your D&D and indie groups.  To each her own.  Doing so may allow you to avoid struggling to get people interested in doing something they don't want to do. At base, gaming is a consensual activity.  All parties need to have enough overlap in what they are looking for to be able to find it together.

Playing in the living room may work better with folks who are on the same page with you.  

Good luck with it.

--Emily Care

Thanks, you guys.  It's really fortunate for me, I guess, that this is really the first time that we've had such a major incident while playing.  Aside from the constant no-shows, of course, which is a completely different issue.  

Sure, I would have had a problem with the annoying, distracting new PC, but other players were complaining, too...and that was what really got to me.  After  much thought and discussion with hubby, we've come up with a few reasons exactly why new PC was so distracting:

1.  He wasn't in the game before so he hadn't been through what the other characters had already been through.  He had a hard time relating to the other characters.  

2.  It was pretty much a spur of the moment thing for him, since he was invited the day before the game, and I don't think he was really in the frame of mind to game, and...

3.  Everyone showed up at 6pm, we had dinner and visited until 8pm when we started the game, and he just couldn't get out of that "visiting" frame of mind.  A few of the people he hadn't seen in a while, so I think that added to it.  

No, I'm not making excuses for him.  The situation that he was in was not necessarily conducive to play for that particular group.   He will have another chance to redeem himself at the next game.  After that, though, there will be no other chances.  

The players that complained asked me last night to run another game with hilarity and wackiness just so they could get over the completely shitty experience they had on Saturday night, by the way.  They were really upset about it.


It's so funny that different groups I play with need different rules.  This particular D&D group has played at the table for so long, that if they're not playing at the table it just doesn't work.  They are too distracted because of the mindset that when we are in the living room we are visiting, and when we are at the table we are gaming.  They are literally Pavlov's Gamers.  

The other groups I play with have no trouble with playing in the living room.  The fact is, I just don't care what room in the house we play in, as long as the game actually happens.

The distinction between the D&D group and the indie group has grown specifically because the players in the D&D group have absolutely no interest in playing any other game, so I have obliged them.  

It's less of a social thing and more of a routine thing for most of these people.  Although, Paul, you bring up some very good points, and I appreciate them very much.   I say that because they do work well as a group, and have done some completely amazing things as a group.  They just have to be in the right place and for them it's at a table.  Yes, there is socializing at the table...I'm not the GM Gestapo or anything, but it's easier for them to get back into play when they are at the place where they know they are gaming.  

So for now, I think, my rules for this group will stand as they are.  

For all of my groups, I have set up a time for their games, and the game will go on...if 2 people show up or if 6 people show up.  The same time every week is a good idea, and I have tried it before, but when they quit showing up I quit running.  Now I'll run even if the only people there are hubby and neighbor.  They always show up.  

Hopefully this will clear up the problems.  If I know the routines and rituals of each group, then the games will go much more smoothly.  It's all about sociology, baby...I think I'm finally getting it.  

smoochies,

melodie